


Common Knowledge

by thedevilchicken



Category: Firefly
Genre: Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 23:24:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7821370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Space ain't romantic. Jayne's known that all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Common Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/gifts).



Turns out, everybody and their gorram grandpappy knows about what's there between the two of them. 

Jayne guesses that shouldn't come as no surprise to nobody 'cause it ain't like Serenity's some huge-ass core world pleasure liner that takes to the skies just so rich folks can see the stars while they sip on their damn champagne like any of that crap's as romantic as the shiny advertisements say it is. Jayne knows space ain't romantic, leastwise not if you ain't rich as Croesus, not that he's ever figured out just who this Croesus fella might be. Space is just space, full of the broken parts of ships run by folks who didn't get how space is cold and dark, not candlelight and roses. Maybe space ain't out to get you, not like a gang of thugs with guns, but it'll get you nonetheless if you ain't real careful.

He ain't a kid no more, so he don't have to fantasize about ways to get himself off of the shitty rock he was born on and make a life for himself out in space, like space might be the better option. Maybe he ain't smart enough to get no highfalutin' medical degree and maybe he ain't no creepy-freaky genius whose head got meddled with by folks as should've known a whole lot better, and he ain't known for his clear strategic thinking or his skills in people management. Maybe he's dumb as rocks like all the others think he is but that don't mean he can't grasp the situation at hand. Space ain't no place for romance. Space is a place you live like you could die tomorrow, 'cause you could. Any of a thousand gorram things could go real far sideways with the ship, parts Jayne don't understand but that's fine 'cause Kaylee does, and they'd all be dead. There ain't no air in space, and you can't light up no candles without it.

The captain don't treat him kind, and Jayne ain't fool enough to expect him to. He don't even really treat him civil most times, and Jayne can't say that's just to keep what's going on between them under cover 'cause it ain't, 'cause everybody knows even if they ain't saying a single word to Mal or him about it. Mal acts like he don't know they know. Mal acts like Jayne's just some ruttin' jackass they put up with 'cause he knows his way around a startling variety of firearms and he ain't afraid to use 'em and everybody just puts on this dumbass fiction like a play he saw once where all the girls was played by guys like that made sense, like they don't know what's going on in Jayne's bunk some nights. Jayne reckons maybe it's 'cause they all know Mal's only got eyes for Inara anyways, even now, in the days after Miranda and the Pax and all that bullshit. The stuff he does with Jayne just passes the time.

Nighttime don't mean much in space, 'cause outside it's always dark, and hours don't mean much neither when you ain't got nights and days and dark and light to measure by. It messes with your head the first few times you're out there flying in it, or at least it did with Jayne's, but now he just eats when his insides grumble and sleeps when his eyes start to close, or maybe when he's told it's time to. Tonight, 'cause everybody makes out like nighttime's some sacred thing and not just a story they tell themselves in space like Mal's wristwatch means a gorram thing, Jayne's in his bunk cleaning his guns 'cause if there's one thing he knows, it's he won't go out of this life 'cause his weapon was all gacked up inside till it won't shoot. But he's there at the table with greasy parts of guns in his hands and he knows the sound of boots on the ladder. He knows whose boots they are and not just 'cause no one else comes in there after lights-out. He'd know the sound of Mal's footsteps pretty much anywhere. He's gotten used to them over the years.

Once he's in there with him the captain don't usually speak much, and Jayne's learned - 'cause he ain't no ruttin' fool even if he ain't the sharpest knife in Serenity's drawer - speaking's just the single most sure-fire way to get Mal to come to his senses, turn tail and run for the hills. Sometimes he wants him to go so he runs his mouth till Mal just can't think of a solitary reason to stay that outweighs how much he wants Jayne to shut his big damn mouth. Tonight, though, Jayne stays real quiet. Tonight, Jayne don't even look up from what he's doing at the table, 'cause he knows sometimes it's best if he don't move at all till the captain tells him. He keeps on reassembling his rifle, clicking bits into bits into other bits he could name if you asked him 'cause if there's one thing he knows then it's weapons, till it starts to look like a gun again and not just parts out of Kaylee's engine room, but he don't get to finish. Mal comes over and puts his hands on his shoulders first, so Jayne sets the parts down and puts his hands down flat on the table, in his ratty old, dirty old fingerless gloves. 

Jayne can remember the first time like it were yesterday, but he guesses it was more like six months, seven, more 'cause it ain't like he's counting up to some ruttin' anniversary or nothing. And he remembers before that, when he thinks it really started, how once upon a time, years ago now, right back near the start on a planet somewhere whose name he don't recall Mal walked in on him doing stuff he hadn't expected to find him there doing. Most of the 'verse don't treat sex like it's some high-up thing 'cept where Jayne's from the fact is you screw around with someone who ain't a professional and that's the next best thing to marriage, so you'd best be prepared. Jayne was with a pro that night like he'd pretty much always been before 'cept in extenuating circumstances, a guy pro 'cause sometimes he likes that and there ain't no one in the 'verse can tell him what feels good ain't right, and then there was Mal Reynolds, big as life and twice as ugly. 

Mal gawked, wide-eyed, cut right off short mid-sentence 'cause he'd just come in and found some big dude fucking Jayne. Jayne looked at him. Mal looked at Jayne. When the guy in him paused, Jayne told him _keep going_ , but he was looking straight across the room at Mal. Mal cussed under his breath and Jayne thought maybe he'd turn around and leave the way he came but he stood there a minute, watching like he'd been stunned right into stone. But then he rubbed at the crotch of his pants with the heel of his hand, all red-faced and scandalized, and when Jayne came on the bed Mal pretty much came with him. _Then_ he left. Not before. They've never talked about it, not even once.

And then, six months ago, seven, whenever 'cause it ain't like time matters none to Jayne at all, after the Pax and Miranda and the Reavers and everything that made the rest of 'em wonder about life and death more than it's ever made Jayne do 'cause where he's from death's just a part of life you can't avoid for long, what had happened years ago seemed to matter more. Mal started looking at him till Jayne wondered if he'd got some kind of growth. Mal started getting closer than he needed till Jayne wondered if he'd made some kind of a bet with Zoë. Then, one afternoon on some dusty-ass planet in the back of beyond, someplace they was ferrying crap from or to or both, one afternoon while the cargo bay doors were wide open and anyone could've seen, Mal pushed him up face first against the bulkhead and shoved one hand right on down the front of Jayne's pants.

"Hey, what're you..." Jayne said, but Mal clamped his other hand down over Jayne's mouth. He was holding him there with the weight of his body, not like Jayne couldn't've gotten away if he'd tried but he didn't try.

"Mouth closed," Mal said, right up by his ear. "You follow? Say _yes, Mal_."

He took his hand away. Jayne said, "Yeah, Mal."

Mal unbuckled Jayne's belt and shoved his pants down round his thighs. Mal pulled down his suspenders and pushed down his own pants, too. He'd gotten some kind of grease from somewhere and Jayne didn't question that, he just braced himself up against the wall, rested his forehead down between his hands, squeezed his eyes shut while Mal pulled up their shirts and pushed into him right there out in the open. It didn't take long till Mal was done and gone and Jayne was left there, jacking off against the wall. Turned out, in the end, he wanted it as much as Mal did. Turned out, in the end, he'd been wanting it for years.

Since then, it's always in Jayne's bunk. The first time Mal came down the ladder unannounced, Jayne shot off his mouth and Mal turned right around and left the way he'd come, so the second time he kept his mouth shut. Sometimes Mal just has him turn around there on his chair, sit himself on down on it backwards and straddle the seat so when Mal unbuckles his belt he can suck his cock over the chair back. Sometimes Mal has him get down on his knees on the floor with the steel toes of his boots scraping at the deck plates while he has him like that. Sometimes Mal has him get up instead and drop trou, bend on down over the table and spread his legs so when Mal slicks up his cock he can have him there all deep and hard like it don't mean a thing, not nothing at all. Jayne thinks maybe Mal don't know the rules Jayne grew up with. Every time he's let Mal have him, it's meant something. Least it has to Jayne.

But tonight's different 'cause today was different. It's different 'cause Mal almost died and it weren't none of that namby-pamby captain-almost-died crap where death's hiding out in the next valley, like was usual; it was that hardass balls-to-the-wall within-a-whisker-of-death kind of captain-almost-died crap, the sort where death came right on up and shook Mal Reynolds by the hand, the kind that happened with much less frequency than the other. There weren't nobody was sure how Mal got outta there alive. 

Zoë said it was a big damn miracle. Shepherd Book would've called it providence, but they'd lost him just like they'd lost Wash so Simon said it for him. River said something that made no gorram sense to anyone, least of all Jayne, but it sounded real pretty whatever it meant. Jayne mostly kept his mouth shut about God and fate and luck 'cause he didn't feel real qualified in that whole area and he turned in early to clean his guns and not think about how Mal could've died if Jayne hadn't've burst on in and shot that guy who'd taken him for ransom no one could've paid. Everybody on Serenity was just treating it like Jayne's shot had been a sure ruttin' thing once he'd gotten through the door and he weren't so sure at all. 

Jayne's killed guys. He's killed a lot of guys. He's shot 'em and he's stabbed 'em and he's mostly gotten paid for it but sometimes it's in self-defense. But for a second there, as the guy he'd shot took the captain down to the ground along with him, he'd almost thought he'd gone and shot Mal dead. That was one kill he would've damn sure regretted. He's felt pretty sick to his stomach just thinking on it.

Tonight's different. Mal's hands sitting there all warm at Jayne's shoulders say it's different but Jayne's so antsy about Mal's brush with death that he don't know _how_ it's different. Mal tugs at his t-shirt so he stands up from the table. Mal tugs at his t-shirt, tugs it up at the back, so he takes it off, pretty damn confused. Mal's behind him and Jayne feels Mal's hands on his bare back, feels his nails rake all lightly at his skin so he bends at the waist and goes down over the tabletop all littered with gun parts but then Mal tosses his shirt down on top of them and somehow then Jayne's even more confused. It don't work like that between them. They don't get naked around each other. That just ain't how the game is played.

"Take your boots off," Mal says, like it's an order just like any other he gives there on Serenity and Jayne frowns even harder but he does it anyhow, sneaking a glance at Mal who's doing the same thing a few feet away, one foot up on Jayne's chair and then the other till he's tossed both boots down on the floor. But then Mal's behind him again, Mal's hands go around his waist and unbuckle his belt, Mal pushes down and Jayne's pants and Jayne's underwear go down around his knees, around his calves, around his ankles. He steps out of them, nudges them away with the side of one bare foot and leans down against the table but then Mal's pants with their suspenders still attached get shoved on over by his and damn, he gets it, Mal must be naked, too. It ties his stomach up in knots to think about.

He bends down lower and he spreads his legs and Mal's hands settle at his hips, Mal's hands squeeze at his rear, Mal's palms spread his cheeks and he rubs at Jayne's hole with the pad of his thumb that it seems he's licked just beforehand. But it also seems that ain't what Mal really wants 'cause he steps away and leaves Jayne stood there like a jackass in his birthday suit. 

"Lie down," Mal says, and Jayne does it 'cause he's told to - like that crap works at any other time - and on his way across the room, the floor cold under his feet, he tries not to look at Mal standing there all bare-ass naked. He fails. He totally fails. Jayne rubs his face and he lies down on his back on his bunk and he breathes 'cause he ain't sure what else there is to do. But then the captain's there planting one knee down firm either side of Jayne's thighs and Jayne just stares up at him like he's gone right on and lost whatever's left of his mind. 

Mal ain't small. He ain't as big as Jayne but Mal's a pretty big guy, Mal's a pretty solid guy, and the weight of them both there together makes the bed creak underneath them, not like they either of them pay it that much mind. Jayne's hands twist up in the sheets by the edges of the mattress 'cause he don't trust himself not to do something really dumb and send Mal running off like some kind of a skittish mount, and so he watches him dig up the lube from down the side of the bed where it always is and watches him open it up with a frown on his face. That frown says Mal has no clue what in the blue hell he's doing there, just like Jayne has no clue either, but then Mal squeezes some of the stuff out right over the length of Jayne's hard cock and all Jayne can do is stare, slack-jawed, while he does it. Mal strokes the stuff over him with one big, rough hand. Mal settles himself down astride Jayne's hips instead of his thighs. Then he guides the head of Jayne's cock up between his cheeks and he sits right on down on it like a fella with a purpose, like maybe now he knows what it is he wants. 

Mal gasps. Jayne gasps. Mal curses. Jayne curses. Jayne shifts his hips and crap, he manages to push himself up deeper into Mal and that ain't even what he intended. It takes a long damn second to wrap his head around that fact: he's _in Mal_. He's balls-deep inside Mal. And Mal's looking at him, his breath all hitching up, his eyes all dark like maybe he ain't sure if he wants to break his jaw or fuck him, and all Jayne can do is scratch at his beard all baffled by it all like some gorram virgin ain't never had a guy before. 

"Look, I know I'm pretty as a picture but ain't you maybe gonna put your hands on me 'stead of staring?" Mal says, but he don't look all that amused with it even if the words sound like they do when he's teasing. 

"You sure you want me to?" Jayne asks, not just 'cause he's covered in gun oil. 

Mal cocks his head. "You gonna make me ask you twice?"

He doesn't ask twice 'cause Jayne puts his gorram oily hands on him real smartly, gets that stuff all over Mal's thighs, all over his hips, finger marks on his skin and Mal leans down over him, hands pressed to the mattress either side of Jayne's shoulders as he shifts against him. Jayne gets his hands to the small of Mal's back and then down to his ass and the dark, flushed way Mal looks at him makes him laugh out loud at how stupid it all is. He bucks up against him, heels braced on the bed, and Mal pushes down and meets him and Jayne gets one hand around Mal's cock and damn, he's never touched him there before, leastwise not so's he might get him off like that. Mostly, he don't touch at all.

He does get Mal off like that. It don't take much, stroking at him, swirling the pad of his thumb over the head of him while Mal rides him, hard and hot and sweaty. Mal ain't real pretty 'less you squint and the face he makes when he comes is right on the edge of hilarious or maybe it would be 'cept all Jayne can do is buck his hips and jerk and come right along with him, just after, so hard and tense he groans and thinks maybe he pulled something, and Mal clamps his hand down over Jayne's mouth to keep him quiet like anyone can hear a thing that's going on in there but them. But then he leans down while Jayne's still hard in him and presses his mouth down over the hand he's got over Jayne's mouth. Jayne looks at him. He looks at Jayne. It's the closest Mal's ever come to kissing him so Jayne's caught kinda like a deer in headlights by it and Mal don't look a whole lot better off. Mal sits up. He clears his throat. But what he don't do is climb up off of him at all, so Jayne clears his throat, too.

"Say, Mal," Jayne says, risking maybe a bit of conversation with his hands resting hot over Mal's thighs. "I'm real glad I didn't shoot you."

Mal laughs, still half breathless. "Yeah, me too," he says, and he rubs at the marks Jayne's greasy fingers left at his hips. Then he pats Jayne's cheek with one hand and maybe gets some of the grease off on him. "Thanks for saving my hide back there. I thought I was done for sure this time." 

Jayne shrugs. "You'd've done the same," he says. 

Mal gives him a kinda lopsided half-smile. "Yeah, I guess maybe I would," he says, like that thought's only just now occurred to him. 

They sit there in silence a while, a few minutes, Jayne starting to get soft, their breath coming back. Mal's looking around the room, looking over Jayne's stuff, his guns, his knives, hat on the counter, pieces of rifle on the table, like he's wondering what he's doing there or maybe he's just now figuring out who Jayne is like it ain't real simple, like he ain't an open book. 

"So, was this my reward for saving your life?" Jayne asks, and he squeezes real light at Mal's hips, rubs with his thumbs, 'cause he thinks maybe it is. 

Mal chuckles under his breath as he looks back down at him, brows raised like that's funny. "Your reward's that I'm gonna take your turn at cooking for the next month or so from now," he says, "though I guess that's a kindness from me to all concerned." He spreads his hands on Jayne's chest and his smile turns so tight it's nearly awkward. "Nah, this was for me."

It's then that he moves, pulls himself up and off of him with a groan like he's hurting 'cept he don't look hurt, least no more than's usual. The captain's a veteran so he's probably carrying old injuries to go along with those old scars Jayne's never gotten the opportunity to see on his skin before now, though Jayne guesses when it comes down to it he's older than Mal and maybe seen as much action, not that that makes no difference between 'em at all. Mal wipes himself down with a big wad of tissues and Jayne watches him do it, looks at him from the bed where he is, and damn, he ain't real clear on how he ever fell in with Serenity in the first place 'cept Mal promised him his own bunk, he ain't real clear how this all became his life, but there's not a whole lot he'd do to change it. 'Cept he does have a rifle to finish reassembling so he gets himself up too, and when Mal starts to dress, so does he. 

"You look kinda different with no clothes on," Jayne says with a grin, pushing his luck, and Mal raises his brows at him as he pulls up his suspenders with a snap but the smile's still right there along with it. 

"You look pretty much the same," Mal says, and Jayne ain't sure if that's an insult or a compliment or equal parts of both. And then Mal pauses once he's pulled on his boots and gone over to the ladder, hands on hips. 

"Say, Jayne?" he says. "How's about you come along to my bunk round this time tomorrow. Your bed ain't real roomy. And I laundered my sheets sometime in this lifetime."

Jayne raises his brows and he don't say what he's thinking about how that's new, about what that maybe means. What he says is, "Sure, I could do that."

Then Mal turns to leave, and Jayne goes back to his rifle that's sat waiting on the table. Mal starts to climb and Jayne should know better but damn, he can't resist, 'cause that's the story of his ruttin' life.

"Hey, Mal," Jayne calls. "You know everyone knows about the two of us, right?" 

Mal turns back to him, up there on the rungs already. "Sure I do," he says, and flashes Jayne a grin across the room. "They know 'cause I told 'em." Then he vanishes above in double-quick time. Jayne just stares right on after him. 

Space ain't romantic. Space is hard and cold and will eat you up if you ain't prepared and you'd better make your peace before you set foot into the skies. 

Jayne grins to himself and turns back to his rifle. Space ain't romantic, but sometimes it sure don't feel far from it.


End file.
